Pass the Hat
by nicole297
Summary: The Queen of Diamonds left Wonderland to her sister a long time ago. When she returns, will it be anything like she remembered? Can she count on old friends to return the fairytale to its original glory? HatterxOC
1. You Plus Me Is Bad News

A/N: SyFy inspired. I don't own much – literally. Some of it is original, though. Pre-miniseries.

**Pass the Hat**

_It doesn't go like this;_

_You've left out some pages_

-_Let Go_, Ingrid Michaelson

_**You Plus Me Is Bad News**_

She wasn't supposed to be there; that much was obvious. She didn't belong. She was lost.

The three boys who crowded around her, jeering, didn't seem to mind. They were glad for it, to say the least. Her earrings were of particular interest, it appeared.

"Those real rocks, kitty?" one of them asked, moving a finger to touch one.

"Leave 'er lone!" he called from the end of the alley. He was surprised she hadn't said anything herself. He had imagined any girl brave enough to wander into this part of town would have had a sharper tongue. He'd been wrong, he decided.

They all turned to him, the girl inching away from them and back down the alley toward him.

"Jeez, Davie! You gave us a fright," the tallest boy's voice dripped with sarcasm. They were hardly frightened of him.

He glared at them all the same. His name was _not_ Davie.

"We thought you might've been someone really scary. You know, like the suits…"

His nose twitched. They would have to bring them up after last week. His ear _still_ hurt. The girl was almost to him now but the boys weren't going to give up their shiny new toy so easily.

"Oi! Kitten! Where you going?"

She turned back towards them. He couldn't see her face, not really, but he could imagine it – eyes wide with terror and her mouth quivering. She was just a little girl, after all. She wasn't even as old as him.

She turned back around slowly, but her face wasn't what he expected. Her lips weren't quivering and her eyes weren't wide. Instead, she was biting her lip and furrowing her brow in what looked like determination. What an odd time not to be scared, he thought.

The gaggle behind her didn't seem to like her silent dismissal. One of the boys – Reggie, he seemed to remember – grabbed her arm and turned her to face him.

That was it; he couldn't wait any longer. He walked towards them, making sure not to trip over his own feet, and shoved Reggie away roughly. Planting himself between the two of them, he turned his head to the side and whispered to her, "You shoul' make a break for it." She stayed still, only watching with a grim expression of confusion on her face.

The other two boys moved to back Reggie who, he'd just noticed, was almost the size of the girl at Davie's back.

"Come on, Davie, don't be stupid. Look at her: she's rich. She won't even miss those stones. We'll even let you have what's in her pockets, won't we, Thomas? What d'ya say?"

Thomas' face gave him away: he was still glaring from under the brim of his hat.

"Why should we? He's only being a bother. We ain't showing him no charity for this. Anyways, I was gonna go through her pockets myself."

"No one's gonna touch her," he said through gritted teeth. He would've been more confident in the statement if she wasn't still _right_ there over his shoulder.

"We'll see about that." The only boy whose name he hadn't bothered to remember stepped forward menacingly. His hands came up and Davie ducked, his ears burning at the thought of being boxed. He swung around, driving the brawl away from her. His knuckles did little damage to the boys; they never had. He managed fairly easily to keep his face apart from their fists, but his chest was a different matter entirely. They landed a couple of good jabs and finally knocked him hard enough to double him over. Reggie came up behind him and locked his thin arms around Davie's. Now it was going to get ugly. Thomas stepped forward and grabbed his chin, pretending to inspect a smudge on his cheek but drew his hand back and let it connect with the spot instead. Hard, to be precise. Another fist connected with his shoulder and another with his nose soon thereafter. The scuffle was taking a turn for the worst.

"Stop! Stop it right this instant!" A crystal clear command sounded, rising above the grunts and moans.

They all stopped and Reggie even let him drop to his knees. They were as startled as him that she had spoken.

"What?" Thomas smiled sardonically. He boxed Davie's ear without moving his eyes from the girl.

"Ow!" Davie couldn't help it. That one had hurt.

The girl's frown deepened, turning into a pout. "I said 'stop'." Her voice was quiet, but resolute.

Thomas backhanded him again, and he felt his lip burst, the blood running in with that from his already broken nose. He could see, through his now-bruising eye, that her eyes had started watering. This idiot was going to make a little girl cry. For. No. Reason. This was too much.

"Sorry, love. I don't think you're in charge here." Thomas snickered, turning to look at Davie before he hit him again. Reggie and the other boy were still a little stunned that she had spoke, or too busy guffawing over Thomas' answer to realize that he had stood up.

He pulled right arm back. As he let it fly towards Thomas and his smug, unsuspecting face, there was a snap. It was hardly as loud as the noise his hand made when it connected and it definitely wasn't as loud as the sound of Thomas flying across the alley and into a row of trash bins. His hat fluttered to the alley below as he soared.

Thomas stood up quickly, his face full of shock. His nose was very obviously broken. It stuck out at an absurd angle, distorting his face. The girl looked at his nose with a scrunched nose and tight mouth. He looked crossly at Davie and the girl, then turned and skulked away, leaving his hat behind. The other boys followed suit, looking so sore anyone would have thought he'd punched them too. He turned to the girl slowly, looking at his hand for any breaks in the fingers. They looked fine.

She swallowed and looked at her feet as he met her gaze. She was still just standing there, her hands balled up at her sides. At last, she looked up.

"Is your hand okay?" she asked with a genuine curiosity. Strangely enough, there was some kind of guilt in her voice too, he thought.

"Yeah, I think so. It's never done that before." He spoke like his arm was no longer part of his body. She giggled. She walked towards him, her head now confident, chin parallel to the cobble. Her face however, looked a little pained. It took him a moment to realize how bad he must have looked after all those blows.

"Your face…" she pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of her dress. She handed it to him, waiting expectantly for him to take it.

"It'll get blood on it," he pointed out.

"I don't mind." She shrugged.

He had just begun to wipe his face with the white cloth when he noticed the embroidery in one of its corner.

His eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he backed away from her, holding the handkerchief between them. The red diamond swung at the bottom of it, waving to its mistress. The girl looked confused, insulted.

"What's the matter?"

As if she didn't know.

"You… you – you're one of the… the _queens_," he stammered. After last week the very last place in Wonderland that he wanted to be was two feet from a queen, the very daughter of the Red Queen herself, in an alley. Holding her kerchief and looking like he did, at that.

The girl curtsied as if she didn't know he was about to sprint after the other boys like she had a plague of some sort.

"Katherine Adelaide-" she began, but he stopped her.

"Yeah, yeah. I _know_ who you are. You shouldn't be here." He was harsh in his reply, but she didn't look nearly hurt enough to run away crying. Not nearly as hurt as she had looked when _he_ was being hurt on her account.

"Thank you," she stated matter-of-factly.

"Don' mention it." Curiouser and curiouser... No suits had come around the corner yet, so he relaxed. Then a thought struck him. He had heard something about this one. This queen.

"Did you…" he gestured to his right hand.

She smiled grandly and then looked ashamed. "I could take it back – I'm sorry…"

"No! No, I rather think it'll come in, well, handy." He grinned as big as a Cheshire.

She giggled again, walking past him into the alley. She stopped at Thomas' hat and picked it up, twirling it in her fingers like a toy. She walked back to him and held the hat out to him like a crown.

"A victor deserves his spoils." She took the cloth out of his hand and ripped it as delicately as anyone could have at one of the corners – the one with the emblem. She stuffed it into the hat along a seam, half of the embellished crimson diamond peeking out of the inside rim now. He hadn't figured out why until she pointed to a spot on his head that he knew smarted.

"In case it bleeds," she explained, placing the hat on his head. Suddenly, she seemed older. No longer the scared little girl who needed protecting, just a girl trying not to abuse her power. _Powers_. She stepped back and beamed at him, obviously pleased with her work.

"It suits you… Davie, was it?"

"No, that's not my name." It didn't sound as bad when she said it. She could've called him whatever she wanted. He must have been thinking this very hard because the next thing he heard her say was, "I suppose I'll just have to call you…well, I suppose… Hatter. Yes, that will do."

"Hatter?" he asked, turning the name over his tongue.

"Yes, Hatter. Do you like it?" She titled her head to the side as she spoke.

"I think it's wonderful," he answered simply. What else could he say to her?

"Well, Hatter, how would you like to come with me?" she asked as if it was the most natural question in the world.

"With you? As in, to Castle?" He'd never dreamed of leaving the city, and he knew better.

"Yes, naturally." She turned, her purple skirt twirling into place and walked in the direction he had come from. "Do try to keep up. I dread being late: my sister always – look, are you coming?" she turned back towards him and gave him a bewildered stare.

"I don' think tha' 's a good idea." He mumbled.

"And why not?" she demanded, sounding a little hurt that he was denying her.

"S'just not, your majesty." He let his shoulders rise and fall in a weak shrug.

"I'm not the queen yet; you should call me Katherine. And I still don't see why you can't come with me. Surely those boys weren't your friends. You can't _want_ to stay here."

"No, that's… no. That isn't the reason, Kat." She looked pleased that he had called her something other than majesty but still unsatisfied by his explanation.

"Look, here's the thing," he went on, trying to grasp at a concept she would understand. "You… ah, here it is: you plus me is bad news. I don't belong in your world."

"You _are_ in my world, silly. All of Wonderland is my world," she pointed out, "but I suppose I see your point." She sighed much too heavily for a girl her age.

He nodded his head. She curtsied again (strange, he thought) and then straightened. She walked until she was less than a foot from him and them licked her thumb, and rubbed the smudge off his bruised cheek. It stung a little, but he kept a straight face.

"It didn't go with the hat," she said plainly and turned.

She looked over her shoulder at the end of the alley and gave him a conspiratorial grin. "Good bye, Hatter. I hope we shall meet again."

"Yeah," was all he said before she disappeared around the corner. He didn't follow.

* * *

This story is set in Wonderland's past. It takes place long before either Alice appear. The Queen of Hearts is still a girl, a few years older than her sister who appears in this vignette. I don't imagine their parents would have had a casino. Their mother _is_ the Red Queen, who here is different from the Queen of Hearts. I'm not an expert on Carroll's works so I apologize if I'm murdering the story's history even more than those before. I just wanted to give a possible explanation for Hatter's hat, name, and awesome strength. If the little Queen of Diamonds doing all this seems illogical to you my response is: it _is_ Wonderland. Plus, I like the idea of Hatter having a bit of regal interaction. Actually, I just plain like Hatter himself. But my attempt at a Yorkshire accent would have been atrocious to read. You'll just have to use your imagination.

My further ideas for this story would completely ruin the SyFy Alice's lovely ending. It would have a _happy_ ending of course (I'm that kind of girl, I'm afraid) but it would take a huge turnabout. Leave your thoughts, though.

PS. Did anyone else think, during the scene in the Casino when they have the shootout between Alice, Hatter and the Suits: "Oh God, someone gave Connor a gun! Shit."? Am I the only one? Primeval fans?

PSS. Please review. 200 visitors and only 3 reviews makes me feel sad. VERY SAD.


	2. Crimson and Red

**Pass the Hat**

_I call you my friend_

_And that's all I knew_

_Why do I have to pretend_

_To find ways to be around you?_

- _Around You_, Ingrid Michaelson

_**Crimson and Red**_

The story had grown taller at dinnertime. Much too tall, in fact. It had begun simply enough. Her family, not to mention the whole castle, knew when she disappeared into her hidden corner of the garden that none of them had found (and never would), that she was thinking up the most fantastic of her stories. She sat in her usual chair, nearly halfway down the table from the King and Queen. This wouldn't have presented a problem to most, but the table for the royalty of Wonderland was much longer than any table in any other land, on either side of the Looking Glass. But the little queen of Diamonds had grown accustomed to the place settings. For just such occasions, she would pull her plate in close and move her water glass, to the dismay of her etiquette tutor, all the way parallel with her dinnerware and then the tales began.

Her sister hated this part of dinner. Luckily, she sat opposite her and the table was _almost_ as wide as it was long. Mary detested the frivolity of her sibling's stories that came from the garden. She tolerated the rehashing Katherine would illustrate for the day's history lesson – especially well if it was anything to do with the darker parts of Wonderland's past – with great patience. Garden stories, however, she excused herself from in a very non-polite manner.

Unfortunately, dinner had just begun when their father, the Red King, spoke, "So, Katherine, I hear no one could find you in the garden today." All of them knew what he was really asking. The Red Queen beside him leaned forward inquisitively as though she could see the expression on Katherine's face.

"I don't suppose you'd like to hear an excellent story, would you, dear King?"

Mary rolled her eyes. As if he had meant anything less. She looked back down distastefully at her hardly finished plate of salad (she despised raspberry vinaigrette). The main course hadn't even arrived yet. She could hardly slip away _now_. She thought about requesting that Katherine didn't tell that story, but the monarchs seemed to dislike that more than she disliked the fairytale rubbish that was about to spill out across the table.

The snap of Katherine's fingers – her left hand, tonight – resonated off the marble floors and all the way into the kitchen. At least two of the cooks and no less than six of butlers sprinted to the dining hall's entryway to see the good fun. The forlorn queen of Hearts glowered at them but they failed to notice. Their eyes were all glued to the center of the table in front of Katherine.

A battlefield that looked rather a lot like a chessboard glowed red a few inches above the white tablecloth. In one far end, waited the likenesses of the Red Queen and King, more marble than man. At the other was a small pawn, looking more purple than red, and glowing with a fierceness that neither the chessboard nor her parents possessed. Two larger pawns and a bishop closed in, leaning on the edges of their bases to leer at the Katherine-pawn. The purple pawn moved back and forth, followed by the bishop and other pawns wherever it went. Somewhere in the distance, Mary could hear her younger sister narrating the story but she wanted to hear _that_ even less than she wanted to see the story being played out before her. She was daring to hope that the chessboard-battlefield at least meant there would be a good fight – preferably a fatal one.

So while her sister sat daydreaming of flesh wounds and good old-fashioned beheadings, Katherine hesitated to introduce the final character. How best to paint him? In the end he came out looking very much like a rook, which was appropriate since she had already given him the hat he wore now. The bishop wore a hat as well, but his was much stupider and looked rather a lot like that of a court jester.

"What's that one called, child?" her mother asked in a faraway voice.

"That one, your majesty, is The Hatter." Her voice held a grand sort of pride as she echoed his name across the room. She gestured grandly, too, as she spoke and nearly knocked her own salad plate out of a distracted butler's hands. Luckily, he caught it before it hit the ground and was ignored still by everyone.

The story went on, The Hatter triumphing by the table's length times two. His face always smiled, even when the bishop threw misguided punches at him (because she didn't want him to get hurt this time). The Hatter's final blow sent the bishop three times as far as it had in real life. Even this didn't turn the story for the better to Mary, who had long ago lost interest. The little glowing Katherine kissed the red rook on the cheek. The Hatter chess piece turned crimson at the chaste kiss in turn, and then faded back to his original color. He escorted the purple pawn to the marble King and Queen, bowing deeply before slipping into one of the checkers of the chessboard as though it were a rabbit hole.

The entire court (for it seemed the whole of them had gathered by now) applauded as the hero made his exit. ("Exeunt brave Sir Hatter," as Katherine had put it.) The queen of Diamonds grinned, much like the real Hatter had in the alleyway, and stood to make shallow curtsies for all of them.

So began the saga of the Valiant Hatter, as the King would come to call him. It was the King who encouraged these tales the most. He would gladly let Katherine regale him with stories in his study during the late hours of the evening so long as she _promised_ that the courageous rook would make an appearance.

The King probably would not have been so enthusiastic had he known the fodder for his daughter's stories. For you see, Katherine felt it necessary to keep her tales as fresh and close to the source as possible. But that boy, the Hatter, had made it _quite_ clear that he did not think the risk of being her acquaintance would be worth the reward. So she kept her distance, watching him from crowded streets and through the cloudy windows of establishments she dared not to go into. She learned his mannerisms and his colloquialisms. She imitated his gestures and his gait.

The rook-Hatter that had at first been stilted, though handsome and true, became a mirror image of the boy on the streets. His bows became more flourished and very nearly impertinent (but the King and Queen thought it endearing of the rook whereas they would not have the real young man). He made jokes in high-pitched tones. Her father's favorite addition were the hat tricks he performed to placate angry mobs of mome-raths and distract ugly jabberwocky.

The young queen was what passes for about eleven on the other side of the Looking Glass when it became more difficult to mirror the fluid movements of her Hatter (for he really had taken the moniker for his own, much to her delight). He no longer stayed in the safer passes of the city's alleys. He was making a lot of trips into areas she knew better than to follow. The dark, poverty-laced neighborhoods of their yesteryear were left behind for windowless and smoky bars and gritty backdoor establishments. She swore that once she had even seen him pick up a small knife at a shop on the edge of town. His childhood was over (if he'd ever had much of one) and, consequently, so were her favorite stories. She occasionally still told them to herself (the original tale revisited and redrawn a hundred times at least) over the following years. Six years passed on the other side of the Looking Glass before her own bedtime stories of boys in hats with sweet, sinful smiles and misleadingly trustful eyes no longer put her to sleep.

The queen of Diamonds had grown up. She had needed to: her father had died and her mother was too ill to rule for even a year longer. Wonderland's fate had fallen to her and her sister. Both were of age; now came the Coronation. And the Blackjack.

* * *

Thank you so much for the reviews so far!

So my keyboard has decided that the 'e' is sensitive. I apologize for an extra e's that may sneak onto the end of inappropriate words. Not much Hatter in this chapter, but I'm trying to condense this part of the story so that I can get to him. I'm using this as a bit of a feeler chapter, I guess. Probing for negative or positive response. (I.E. Review, please!) If anyone experienced would like to volunteer as a beta, I'm open for one.

I'll answer questions about characters or this story's mythology, also, if you like. Concerning the story's future, I may be more tight-lipped, though.


	3. Where Is It She Goes

**Pass the Hat**

_Inside your porcelain fists,_

_your palms begin to crack_

- _Porcelain Fists_, Ingrid Michaelson

_**Where Is It She Goes**_

The throne room had been completely rearranged. A large round table stood dead center, covered in red velvet. The same hue of velvet, only plusher, led in two separate lanes to the edge of the table. Katherine pulled at the buttons on the front of her dress, staring down the long aisle. As a child, she had never thought much of the room; its gilded ceilings and towering thrones had been boring and she much preferred the gardens and kitchens and small, wood-paneled hallways. Now, however, the room stood full, impressive, and terribly, terribly frightening.

She had thought of running away twice to try and avoid what was coming – even dared to create a small wisp of a jub-jub bird but hadn't had the heart to grow it to its real size(_Coward_, she had chided, waving the still-wispy bird away).

Her sister sneered at her from the end of the other carpet. They weren't sisters anymore, it seemed. From the moment their father had died all ties that had bonded them in kinship had died as well. Instead, they became adversaries. The last thing she had said to her sister was "That one," after her sister had spent the afternoon of the funeral shrieking, "Mary Ann? Oh, for Heaven's sake, which one of you blasted girls is Mary Ann?"

A few children waited anxiously at the edge of the door in which she stood. Probably footmen and scuttle maids, but children all the same, with large sparkling eyes and upturned, hopeful faces. She tried to smile at them, but it was weak and felt all wrong.

A thought crossed her mind shortly thereafter; _turtledove_. Her father had called Mary that when they were young... The sharp-nosed young woman across the room was hardly a _dove_ of any kind; she more resembled a hawk with her beady blue eyes and predatory gaze. She looked back at the children; they would like a show no doubt.

As quietly as she could, she snapped her fingers (behind her back, so as not to draw the notice of Mary) and watched the children's faces as her little turtle flew awkwardly on makeshift wings. If the queen of Hearts had ever resembled a turtledove, this would have been the spitting image. The children liked the magic and a few inched closer to her, spouting questions despite the disapproving glares of the guards.

"What is it?"

"A Turtle-dove. Do you like it? I've just thought of it." She whispered back to them, and the guards cleared their throats.

"Very much," said one girl, her hair golden as corn.

"Was it a real turtle once?" another asked.

"I don't suppose so…" she could not finish the answer, for trumpets sounded and a man dressed all in red walked forward into the center of the room.

"The Red Queen," he announced in an unnaturally loud voice. Perhaps it was the room that was unnaturally quiet. Their mother glided forward, looking fragile and pail, like a wilting rose. She nodded to the large court gathered but did not give either of her daughters a passing glance.

The herald had moved to stand a few feet from the table and held his left hand out in gesture, "The queen of Hearts, Mary Elizabeth Constance Lavinia Heart."

Mary puffed up like bread dough and started toward the table, looking down her nose at the entire room.

The same man, still at the table, held his right hand aloft.

"The queen of Diamonds, Katherine Adelaide Patience Elaine Diamond." Katherine started a little. _So fast_, she frowned, then quickly commenced to the table. She gave a meek smile to those who met her eyes. Some she recognized: maids and ladies in waiting, a number of the suits, even a couple of the cooks. The rest blurred together, nameless faces of which she might soon be queen. They hoped so, at least.

And then she was at the table, facing their Castle tutor, Doyle. Once both of the queens were in place, he opened a solid gold box wordlessly and pulled out a deck of cards, the likenesses of her mother and aunt intertwining on the back in red and white. Suddenly there were three card before her and Mary. Had he even shuffled them? She remembered countless times when she had stared at him shuffling decks for what felt like hours. She could hardly keep her hands from shaking. She put her left hand behind her back for good measure and reached for the first card shortly after Mary turned hers. She flipped it over slowly, then the second, followed after a long moment's pause by the third.

Now yet another face stared back at her. A jack of Hearts lay proudly before her, looking a lot like Mary's latest suitor, Winston. A three of Spades and a five of Clubs sat triumphantly on either side of the Jack. Mary had been less lucky; a queen of clubs mocked her with a pair of threes. A Ten of Clubs – a real one, hardly older than Katherine, called out the spread to the spectators.

Katherine could hardly believe it. She had won. With the simple luck of the draw, she had won. This was _not_ how she had imagined it. Not how she had wanted it. So when she spoke, it was with little thought as to what she said.

"Hit me."

"Your majesty…" he laughed.

"Hit me," She said again, with more conviction.

"Do you not see the cards before-" Doyle thought she was stupid –struck dumb or blind.

"Hit me." This time the whole room heard her. A murmur rose behind her like the sound of hurricane.

"Do it," Mary hissed, hardly loud enough for Katherine to hear. For a split-second, she was grateful for Mary's gift, even if this favor was not meant as a favor at all.

The tutor's hand hovered on the deck before pushing a final card towards her. It felt like forever that the queen of Diamonds stared at the back of the card, tracing her mother's face over and over. The crowd's murmur rose and died and then rose again.

If it was meant to be, truly meant to be, this card _would_ be a two. Fate should choose this, not her. Not her sister, not her tutor, not even her mother. So she reached for the card.

She swore she heard her sister squeal before she even laid the card on the table again. The Ten of Clubs' voice cracked as he called out the final card.

"A… queen of Diamonds."

The irony. At first the people misunderstood: they thought she had flipped a two or an ace and won the kingdom. Cheers began and clapping ensued, but Tutor Doyle quieted them, "I present to you the Queen of Wonderland; Mary Elizabeth Constance Lavinia Heart, Queen of Hearts." His voice sounded disappointed, worried even. The clapping became static, the cheers unenthusiastic. It wasn't until this moment that Katherine realized that she had been the favorite by so great a margin.

She looked at her mother whose tired face congratulated an elated Queen of Hearts. No room left for her there. She hazarded a glance at Doyle, whose face told her that he would gladly hold down Mary so that Katherine might transform her into some kind of inanimate object, something unfit for rule. She smiled a tired smile, so similar to what her mother had when she had entered and turned without a word. Her sister wouldn't want her congratulations. The suicide of her royal career had been gift enough. She couldn't bear to see the faces of countless would-be subjects begging her for an explanation.

She was running for the garden, unsure of where she meant to go. It took her six tries to find her corner. By the time she did find it she had ripped most of her coronation dress off, leaving her in a velvet slip and corset. No more hoops that caught on low bushes or wide shoulder drapes that caught in rosebushes. She was free for the moment, and she relished it. The dress had been silly anyway; buttons on both the front and back. She felt like a banana shedding its peel when she removed it. A silly, stupid, self-indulgent banana.

She wanted to leave; to go somewhere that no one would have heard of her tremendous blunder. She thought of the city for the first time in years. If she could travel faster than the news…

When she arrived in the city (having stopped a moment to remove the pearls from her hair and fasten her cape around her), it was quiet. Noise drifted to the streets from inside some of the buildings but hardly anyone walked the cobbles but her. The only person she actually saw was a very short young man with a prominent mustache and tweed jacket. He mumbled something about sleeping in the bottom of a well with three sisters or something along those lines as he walked. She followed him a short way until he went into a shop from which elicited raucous laughter. Having nowhere better to go, she entered here too. Not a single person took notice of her. It would have been hard to in any case: steam and smoke filled the air, as well as the lovely smell of jam on warm bread.

She moved further into the building, crouching a little so as not to bump into any of the furniture. A bar stretched down one wall, its surface covered in tea trays. She inspected each tray, curious that they all seemed to be full of different teas and a new set of confections the further along she went. About halfway down she found that a man was at her elbow, young or old she couldn't see for the fog, but his voice drifted down upon her like a song from a dream.

"Can I 'elp you?" it asked in a lovely tune. (_Surely not_…)

"No, I was simply looking," she began, but quickly changed her mind. "I did wonder what the confections for these were…" she waved a hand at the nearest platters.

She tried to peer at him through the haze, but was unable to achieve any confirmation.

"Well this one," he answered, picking up a plain looking teapot that appeared to be missing its spout, "is an Earl Gray tea." He set it back down and picked up the plate beside it, before sighing in frustration and trying to waft the steam away from in between them. Katherine quickly recognized his hand's attempt and turned back to the trays, hoping her cape's hood would hide her blush as well as her face.

"And it goes delightfully with these – macaroons." He set down the plate, humming some kind of song to himself and picked up another teapot.

"_This_ a chamomile tea," he poured a cup deftly, ignoring the pot's obvious complication of having had two spouts. "Best this side of the Looking Glass, or so I've told everyone." His voice told her he was smiling as he offered the cup to her. She could see his pinky sticking out in the mist but was too distracted by the horrible idea that had just crept upon her.

"It pairs perfectly with the scones," he went on, still holding the cup for her.

"No thank you," she refused politely. She was just about to speak again when the doors flew open, slamming on the walls they hung from.

"A FOLD!" someone screamed, and then was gone.

There was an uproar among the patrons of the teashop. She couldn't see what they were doing, but she could hear them. Dishes had begun to crash noisily to the floor and, perhaps even, she thought, the walls.

"What does that mean: 'a fold'?" she asked quietly, afraid to make her voice heard.

"Oi! Not the ceramics!" he cried and then huffed. "Means the queen's been chosen," he stated forlornly and began to move to what she assumed was the dining floor.

"Oh," she said more quietly but moved to follow him before he could get too far.

"You mentioned the Looking Glass a moment ago. Is that far from here?"

He stopped and turned to face her, though he could hardly have seen her face. It seemed even the pots were outraged by the coronation's outcome, spurting more steam into the air than ever before. "Yeah, s'down the street an' 'round the corner." His voice was suspicious but still distracted by more crashing sounds.

"Which street? Which corner?" she could hardly breathe for what she was about to do.

"The left street – look, I dunno what you think you'll do there but you can't get in. They don' let people in, an' they don't let oysters out…" he turned back to the dining room as a pot whistled across the room to sail through a window. "Oh," he moaned, "that'll take _weeks_ to repair." His voice squeaked on the word 'weeks' and if she hadn't been so desperate to disappear, she would have stayed to see how much he was like she remembered.

Instead, she whispered "thank you" absentmindedly and made for the door before he could think of stopping her. Not that he had any reason to; she had just hoped in the back of her mind that he might. Just like she had spent those years in her childhood hoping that he might change his mind about their separate worlds and come knocking on the kitchen door in Castle. Neither happened, of course. Neither ever would.

* * *

Sorry about the delay. My home internet no longer works. (A computer virus disguised as anti-virus software. Ha, good one.) I'm updating as quickly as I can at the public library. Sorry about the delay in response to the comments and reviews; my mother and I drove sixteen hours to fetch my grandma and bring her home. Go Holiday travel! Oh, and there's a showing of Alice on SyFy today at 5 o'clock Eastern Time. I'll be watching. Will you?


	4. Many The Miles, Many The Miles

**Pass the Hat**

_When the cracks in my ceiling_

_Give me this empty bottle feeling_

_I think it's time to repaint_

_It's time to repaint myself_

_- Empty Bottle, _Ingrid Michaelson

_**Many The Miles, Many The Miles**_

Katherine's adventure through the Looking Glass was not something she remembered fondly. She had waited around the corner for a full ten minutes before snapping her fingers, putting the guards to sleep. It wasn't out of uncertainty that she took so long, she just didn't like using her gifts on occasions such as this (not that she often went running away to the other side of the world). The long years that her nurses, tutors, and father had spent teaching her not to use her fingers in frivolity or ill will had made its impression upon her.

She made sure her mother's (_Mary's_, she reminded herself later) ring was in the contraption and stood hesitantly in front of it. How did one enter a mirror with any grace?

They didn't, was her answer. She hadn't put the guards out for long enough, an unfortunate decision on her part. One of them lunged for her legs from his place on the ground. She dodged out of the way, slamming first into the bronze frame and then, consequentially, into the mirror itself. It took her a few seconds to realize she was _falling_ to the Looking Glass' World, the air around her flying past like a watercolor painting. Suddenly, she lay on a cold, hard street of the Looking Glass World, blackness all around her.

The night she had appeared on the streets of what appeared to be a _very_ large city, she spent hours wandering around, peering into the faces of strangers and checking over her shoulder, searching for signs of a pursuit. Both actions came up dry and she was glad. Her new life shouldn't start by being dragged around to face consequences of choice. _Her_ choice.

* * *

It had taken her less than a year to fall into life in the new world. She still slipped up occasionally but not enough for her small circle of acquaintances (two, to be precise) to notice any longer. Their world was just so _different_. First off, there were no kings or queens. Well, not anymore. She didn't have that to worry about. For that, she was grateful. Then there were the cars. At first they were like noisy, ill-tempered horses that didn't know which way they were going. After a few years, she warmed up to them. She even bought one for herself. She talked to it sometimes, too.

Six years passed on her new side of the Looking Glass. She stopped wishing she had paused to check the address on the mirror before she left a long time ago. She knew when and where she was by now, but it wasn't the same as Wonderland's perception of time. Everything passed so fast here. And, yet, it seemed to take forever for time to really pass. She aged so much faster than she had. She grew one final inch and even rounded out in places she hadn't known were supposed to be round.

The first time she had tried to ask for a cherry cordial (about four days after her arrival) the woman had nearly gone into fits. Apparently no one drank at the (supposed) age of seventeen here. There were a lot of things people didn't do here: curtsey, talk to themselves, ask animals for directions. Approximately two years after her arrival (and still two years before she could order cordials) she found her first confirmation that Wonderland was real and that she hadn't lost her mind. It had become a worrisome but quite necessary contemplation, especially after the number of times she had electrocuted herself with the kitchen appliances. (In the end, she settled for owning only a stove and an icebox. Nothing else was worth the risk of explaining to the nice women at the hospital why she did _not_ know that fishing buttered toast out of the toaster with a knife was a bad idea.)

A man called Carroll had written a story about a girl from this new world of Katherine's traveling through a rabbit hole and, then again, a Looking Glass to visit a land of fancies and nonsense. She could not fathom how she had not heard of Alice when she found the book's publish date (over a hundred years before), but then realized the funny way that the mirror had. It wasn't as if time ever passed the same way on either side. That rabbit hole, she wondered, might have had something to do with her secret corner of the garden… Had _she_ left a door open? At any rate, she read the first half of the Alice story with some amusement. Most of the flowers sounded exactly like her ladies-in-waiting. The self-righteous and elitist confidence. And the caterpillar reminded her of the last tutor she and her sister had had. It wouldn't have surprised her to seem him balancing a hookah on his knee.

Halfway through the book, on the other hand (or knee, if you like), she began to recognize that there were horrid inaccuracies. The Hatter she had spent so long perfecting in red dream-ink was _mad_. He spoke to rabbits and threw insane tea parties. And he was rude, which might have been the worst of it if not for the _Queen _of Hearts. She had nearly thrown-up the first time her eyes crawled across the words.

_Off with her head_.

It woke her in cold sweats at night. It was a child's book, to be certain, but too much rang true for it to all be hogwash. This Alice child might have survived the story but no doubt the 'cards' had not. No, they would have been made public spectacles of. She imagined her lovely garden, its soil soaked in a sticky, acrid-smelling liquid. And it was all her fault. She had ruined her home. She had ruined everything. She'd never be able to return.

So she resigned herself to this world. With movies that looked like her own dreamy youth (sometimes) and foods she had never heard of, like pizza. She found a knack for collecting old things. Items that looked out of place in this world. Items that might have been at home in Wonderland. The old Wonderland, at least. Sometimes it seemed that people wanted to be rid of them more than they wanted her to pay for them. She couldn't understand it, but she knew that it was her best chance of survival. So she sold some and bought some and then sold some more. It was a strange sequence for her; she found all the paper and 'money' that came in between tedious. She collected every _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ and _Through the Looking-Glass_ she came across with fervor. Once she read them cover to cover, hoping for a clue: a grain of truth among its pages of lies, she would sell them to bookstores that simply could not understand how she acquired so many and kept none.

Truthfully, the shame was too great. As long as they were in her apartment, she could not rest. The pages and its illustrations called to her, in the voices of her past, driving away sleep. After two and a half more years, she stopped collecting them. She had already redrawn every illustration in the book that she had felt was wrong, right down to the Mad Tea Party and even her special little Mock Turtle.

She spent her nights with pencils and ink and parchment, scratching Wonderland out of her memories and onto the pages. When she had opened her own antique shop (hardly more than a closet, to be honest), the illustrations spilled out of her apartment and into the shop, covering pages of orders and flowing out of drawers.

She had fallen asleep in a swanky orange armchair in the shop, a gift from a lovely Syrian-Lebanese woman – whatever that meant, on a sunny March afternoon when Henry came to visit her. She liked Henry, she thought, for his name; Henry was a good, old-fashioned name. Come to think of it, she liked the strange names in this world, too: the lady in the shop next door went by Fefe, and Katherine found herself saying the older woman's name often in conversation.

Henry entered loudly this day, startling poor Katherine so badly that she threw the pencil she had been holding clear across the room. It sailed quietly, and landed with a low tap. Katherine sighed as she stood up to fetch it.

"Got anything new for me?" he asked, moving to the logbook at the counter.

"No, I don't believe so. Not for you, anyway, Henry." She answered, still searching between two bureaus for the pencil.

"I'd love for you to explain how you can sleep in the middle of the day when you _should_ be finding me lovely new pieces for my mother's curio cabinet. She loved the rabbit with the clock in its stomach, don't you know?" Henry talked too much; she always forgot that. But he was an extremely generous man – he had bought her dinner anytime they happened to be in the same establishment.

"I'd like to know how many curio cabinets your mother has," she grumbled, finally standing up, pencil in hand.

"You know what I'd really love for you to explain someday?" Henry went on, ignoring her question. Katherine didn't answer immediately; she was too busy avoiding the _standmixer_ someone had brought her with great caution. It looked rather a lot like a kitchen appliance.

"These." He elaborated by holding aloft one of her sketches. She grabbed the broken face on the page out of his hand but he simply picked up another with a very large table, full of exotic foods and wonders, and another with a pretty girl in a maid's dress.

Katherine opened an already full drawer and shoved all of them she could reach into it. "They're just drawings. Some people talk; some people draw. Surely you can understand that," she huffed, but Henry did not bat an eye.

"I've seen hundreds of these that you've made. I've walked in on you drawing them too; you look so sad when you _draw_." The word came out like he did not approve. As if she needed his approval. "Besides, they all look the same. Well, except for that one that you do…" his voice trailed as he opened back up the drawer, pages falling to the floor around their feet.

Katherine would have liked to have stopped him but didn't see the point in trying considering the way his size compared to hers. Instead she stared blankly as he pulled out the first few parchments he found in red ink.

"It's just a boy." She stated. After a moment she added, "In a hat."

"But why is it in red? These are all the same boy, even I can tell that. Do you know him or something?" Henry was laughing, most likely at the absurdity of her reaction.

"No, not really... I just saw someone like him once…a long time ago now." She frowned at the rendering in front of her. The smile was all wrong, she saw now. It was older and mocking; a smile that looked woeful on him but would have been right at home on her own face now.

"Why so many?" he asked and jumped in before Katherine could protest. "Don't make me look through these other drawers."

"I would hardly get any better if I didn't practice. Your DaVinci did case studies, didn't he?" Oops, a slip…

"He's certainly not my DaVinci, but I do see," Henry answered.

She made that mistake more often than others. Referring to the past of this world as if it was not her own. It wasn't, to be perfectly honest, but that rose more awkward conversations than she cared for.

Henry put down the papers and left soon thereafter, with another of the Alice-books for his mother. She liked them for her bookshelves, he had told her years ago. Katherine would have liked very much to see the old lady's house on some occasion; surely the ceiling must be covered in shelves, along with the beds and showers and maybe even the garden.

She spent the rest of the afternoon finding safer places for her drawings and attempting to move the standmixer into a far corner without actually touching it. How she missed snapping her fingers these days. The only use now for that, though, was the noise, but people mostly found it a rude sound so she rarely made it.

That night on her walk home, she turned down a wrong alley and woke up the next morning to look for Wonderland. Something else had happened that night, of course, but she refused to discuss it, even with herself.

If that stupid eleven-year-old had found her homeland without so much as a clue that it even existed, surely she could do the same. She began to place her finger to every mirror she passed, hoping to see it vanish through to the other side. It never did, of course. She expanded her search to gardens and even forests, peeping into burrows and especially wild-looking bushes. Those were empty too, she found. Actually, that wasn't true. One of them had been home to a very indignant raccoon who was hardly placated by her coos of apology. She was hardly discouraged by one raccoon, though.

Two more years passed by while Katherine developed these practices. To an outsider, she looked insane. She felt insane, to be sure. She was no longer actively searching for Wonderland. Her hands drifted across mirrors and her eyes squinted into dark holes with little thought behind the actions. Her mind had given up, it appeared, but her body still longed to be home.

Tuesdays were now her gathering days. She visited a lot of people who dealt as a hobby during the lunch hours of their real jobs. Most of the office buildings blended together, she found. She had just picked up a particularly lovely pocketwatch from a favorite colleague of hers (a Mister Everett) and was waiting in the elevator when she noticed the inscription on the back of it.

_CLD. _

_Love, APL. _

Surely those initials meant something to her, didn't they? Why couldn't she remember? She didn't notice the little triangles on the door's frame glowing brighter as she journeyed downward. She didn't notice how much longer the ride took her this time. She didn't notice the flickering lights or strange, un-tiled floor when she exited. She didn't notice anything, in fact, until she walked outside and tried to unlock her car as she stared at the golden watch. She decided the letters were nothing but nonsense to her about the same time she realized her car hadn't beeped in response.

So, she looked up. Wonderland stared back.

* * *

Computer fixed! Huzzah! And, yes, I've already started working on the next chapter. Don't be too disappointed with this one, please.

To those who saw Tin Man: Is the Cheshire/Dinah cat in the forest the same as the cat on the farm in Tin Man? Anyone?


	5. Reach Into Foreign Lands

**Pass the Hat**

_Here in these deep city lights_

_A girl could get lost tonight_

_I'm finding every reason to be gone_

_There's nothing here to hold onto_

_- City, _Sara Bareilles

_**Reach Into Foreign Lands**_

Not the Wonderland she remembered, of course. No, not _her_ Wonderland. But Wonderland all the same.

The Wonderland of her youth had _long_ since been replaced, by the looks of it. She had known that the moment she read those horrible books. But to see it for herself was something quite different all together. The quaint cobblestone roads and brick-faced shops had been replaced by stark and characterless cement. The whole city had become darker and more sinister, a doppelganger of its former self. Her own shadow seemed more threatening here. It stretched across the pavement, beckoning her further into the gloom. She had taken a good number of steps before she even realized that half of the sidewalks were missing. Nothing separated the city's levels any longer, except the thick, gray air.

Katherine wondered briefly if the heights were enough give her vertigo but didn't dare look over the edge of the path too long. She pocketed the golden watch and her keys (she didn't know why) and pondered which direction to head in. The buildings and alleys here didn't look familiar, not a single marker for her to recognize where she was going. This wasn't the city she remembered, after all. Honestly, she hadn't thought long or hard enough on what she was going to do once she got here. The answer to her conundrum appeared quickly enough, though.

A mouse of a man stumbled past her, squeaking to no one in particular from underneath his mustache. Instinctively, she followed. Katherine nearly had to run to keep up with him. His short legs were faster than one would have thought. A feeling of déjà vu passed over her while she followed hot on the tail of his fur coat, hoping he would stop talking to himself long enough to speak to her. The buildings began to look more familiar the further she followed him, brick facades emerging from the misting rain, complete with their homey, beamed porches and poorly-kept pane glass windows.

And then they were inside an old shop, heading for a back room when he abruptly stopped. She assumed, at first, that he had noticed her chasing him. A loud snore erupted from the small man as she snuck in front of him, however – he was asleep now, standing up and all. (_Asleep_!) He still spoke in his sleep, but it was jumbled and far too quiet for Katherine to hear properly. (She was _quite_ certain she made out the word 'jam', nonetheless.)

She looked around the room. Perhaps someone else was in here; she wasn't certain if waking him was a good idea. She wasn't sure that she'd had any good ideas yet. Not today, for sure.

No one was in the room, and for good reason it appeared. Everything was topsy-turvy. Tables on their sides. Dining wares smashed into the tile and grass floor. Lights coming and going, swinging in the unfelt breeze. It looked like someone had rampaged the place. Looking closer, she noticed a teapot on the floor at the drowsing man's feet. It was round and without a spout, and broken now. It looked like an egg, in all honesty. The comprehension crashed upon her like spilling hot tea into one's lap. Goodness knew she had done that often enough as a child.

The mustached man, the shop, the teapot – they were all the last things she had seen in this world. She turned around the room again, frantically searching every corner. Still, no one. There was a door in the back where her pursuit had seemed to head… Maybe it would hold more promise. She tiptoed to the room and opened the door, surprised when she saw that the lights were many and bright in this room. It had been rifled through as well, but not nearly to the same extreme. There was a large, very mod chair upturned in the middle of the room, and a desk and some cabinets behind that. Strange clumps of wildflowers were scattered at her feet.

Not a single soul stirred in this room either. Well, until she was halfway across the room and a voice pitched at her, "Don't go on the grass. He doesn't like people on the grass."

At first she wasn't sure if he addressed her or if he spoke to himself once again. She avoided the grass, all the same.

"He?" She asked, frowning. It wasn't like someone who wasn't here could be upset by her setting foot on a patch of grass.

"You shouldn't be here. You're not supposed to be here. Who are you?" The last sentence didn't sound like a real question, so she didn't answer.

"What happened? Here, I mean?" She stepped closer to the shorter man.

"He helped the girl. Mad March came, with a new head. Ratty told. I ran. They've broken all the teas!" The only part of the explanation that made sense was the final mounting distress in his voice. He had hardly answered the question at all. Who was Ratty? Who was Mad March?

"And the city? What happened to the city? It didn't used to be like this…" she hoped his answer would be a little more coherent this time.

"Not an oyster… no, no mark. No oyster. How don't you know?"

Katherine grew more confused. What mark? What difference did it make if she was an oyster? It made her no less human. Well, maybe a little, but still…

"I've been away. A… um, a… a sabbatical." She spit the first word that came to mind. In hindsight, a Christmas vacation would have been more believable.

"The Queen. The Queen's done it. It's the tea!" he shrilled and ran, disappearing back through the door they had come from.

_The Queen_. Of Hearts, no doubt.

That was enough for Katherine; she knew what she had to do. She needed to find her sister. The sister who was responsible for this destruction, this abhorrence. This festering slum of a city and who knew what all else… But how? Surely all of her old hideaways and paths had been destroyed or lost by now. No telling how long had passed in Wonderland while she was gone. First off, she needed a plan. From what she knew of her sister, from her memories, books, and what she saw now before her, she would _definitely_ need a predetermined plan of attack.

* * *

The man with the mustache was long gone when she re-emerged into the shop. She half-wondered if it had lain in ruins since she left, but the lack of sense the mouse-man made it seem unlikely. She had found a staircase to the lower levels, but had to alternate the last two levels for ladders. The ladders had been so rusty she thought perhaps she would plummet to her death right then, metal rung in hand.

The wind was colder here, off the river, and she shivered under her clothes. She wished now she had taken more than the scarf and scrappy pair of gloves from the back room of the tea shop. There had been plenty there, but she didn't imagined she would need more than she had taken. Well, maybe a hat. But she hadn't dared to take one for fear that its owner (did she dare to dream it?) would miss it. She had almost traded her shoes for one in the glass wardrobe but the only women's shoes in it had looked far more uncomfortable than her own.

She thought about going back to the tea shop especially after the first few puddles dampened her socks, and very nearly turned around when a fourth puddle drenched her from the knee down. _Only in Wonderland_, she had thought as her leg sunk into what appeared to be a very small but very deep pond, surprised by the rueful smile that crept across her face. So with a damp foot and aching heels (the way her shoes held them was hardly conducive to traipsing through the rugged streets), she kept going, further and further into the strange excuse of a Wonderland that she had found.

If there were people left in the city, none of them came out to greet her. Not one single person crossed her path. She vaguely knew her way to Castle from memory, but she would have considered directions from any living soul a blessing. Unfortunately, it was simply Katherine and the bad weather as she made her way to the edge of the city. The only (miniscule as it was) blessing in this was that she had time to flesh out her course of action.

She could hardly greet Mary by saying that the throne was rightfully hers. No, that would most likely backfire. Or decapitate…

So she decided to improvise best she could, taking a hint from the stories of the Looking Glass World in which she had previously resided. Perhaps, if she could convince Mary that she was too far gone in the head to be a threat, it would give her long enough to find out how best to undermine her sister-monarch.

She had just begun to list the behaviors of madness when she heard voices again. They weren't inside her head, thank goodness (she had worried, with the things she had begun to think of late), but came from a large and tall building, full of windows that didn't appear to look either in or out. The voices varied; some loud, some quiet – angry and desperate, hopeless and frantic. Enough to make her shudder harder in the wind than before. She didn't want to go in, she knew, but felt she must.

Katherine was relieved to see that no throngs of people crowded the entrance. She had once seen a movie about things called 'zombies' on the other side and this setting reminded her a terrible lot of the worst parts of that film. After a few seconds her eyes adjusted to the poor lighting, and she saw that there were lots of doors along the corridor of the building, some large and some small. Each door seemed as different as the voice that echoed from behind it. It didn't seem like a good idea to open any of them, but she couldn't help herself. She _had_ to know. She opened the smallest door she could find, and peered through the glass behind it. The smallest man she had ever seen glared up at her, shrieking in an indignant voice that she could make neither head nor tail of.

She kept gazing into the doors as she made her way along the main hall, disturbed more and more by the scene behind each. She had just begun to think that perhaps she would not make a very convincing crazy person. Looking at these poor people, she felt like a very incompetent actress. Not that they were acting.

From the end of the hall she could hear extremely clear and conscious voices. They troubled her a little, but she still kept on towards them. From around the corner, she could tell that the room beyond was larger, its ceilings wider and the patrons of the room were definitely not locked up. She steeled her nerves and peeked into the room. A small crowd gathered, the nearest of the group with their back to her. One head stood out above the crowd.

_Mary. _

Red curls piled on top of her head, making her impossible to miss, had she not been speaking as well. Katherine tugged at the scarf on her head, pulling it further into her face. She wished desperately that she had aged more than a few years now. Mary certainly had. She looked a good thirty years older, and there was no telling how long that was in Wonderland time. She might not have known _this_ Mary, save for the hearts embellished on her dress and the royal entourage lurking just beyond the Queen of Hearts.

Katherine on the other hand, felt as though she looked exactly the same as when she had left. Time had been kinder to her. It wasn't going to be much longer, she decided, when a very tall Club stared harshly at her half-visible face, leaning toward the Queen ever so slightly. It was now or never. There was no time for a new plan. So the new queen of Diamonds stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with her past and face to face with her future.

* * *

The Club stopped, either distracted by her movement, or the Queen's outburst.

"I'll hardly tolerate this! That ring is my birthright! I am the Queen, the one and the only!" she squawked, not noticing Katherine.

"Quite right, I should say so!" Katherine applauded jovially. Every eye in the room turned to her now, as though she would spontaneously combust. It occurred to her that the whole ordeal might turn out to be more difficult than she thought.

The Queen's reaction was the worst, her eyes bulging and nostrils flared. She took Katherine's enthusiasm for mockery, and was not the least bit happy about the interruption, either.

"And just who are _you_?" she asked, eyeing Katherine under the scarf as though she were some kind of sugary tart.

Katherine stepped forward, careful to wipe away any apprehension on her face as she pulled the scarf back and let it fall to her neck, her ears chilling in the open air. "Hello, Mary."

The Queen of Hearts stared back in blatant confusion. "It's impossible…" she whispered loudly enough for half the room to hear. Her hawk-like gaze still made Katherine shiver, even though she was a half a head taller than her older sister now (_probably just the shoes_).

Katherine picked up her eyebrows and put on her best impression of their old tutor's voice: "Improbable, actually. It's such a lovely word, don't you think?"

The Queen most certainly did not seem to think so. She only stared, looking for some broken seam on this supposed imposter's costume.

Katherine went on, " Besides, nothing is impossible. Well, except for treacle. Treacle _is_ quite impossible. Impassible, even." She smiled a little at her own rambling. Hadn't she heard the cooks say that once? Surely here and now it sounded quite bizarre. She hoped so.

"You can't be-" There was a trace of indignity in the Queen's voice.

"But I am. And you've found me." She did her best to sound like she had been playing hide and seek but thought it probably didn't come across.

"I have _not_ found you!" It sounded a lot like her sister would be happy to put Katherine back in the lost-and-found, were it available.

"Oh, but you have. I had just been saying to myself: where would Mary come looking for me, I said, where do you think?" Half of the suits to Katherine's left flinched as the young queen used the Queen's Christian name so casually. The Queen didn't seem pleased by it herself either, for that matter.

"And I absolutely _knew_ you would come here. And, so, here I am, turtledove." Katherine _had_ been meaning to log away the nickname to use later, but it slipped here instead. Too late…

"Impertinence!" Mary screamed, pointing her finger in a strange way at her sister. A way that resembled an order, apparently. A good number of the suits moved toward Katherine before she lifted her hand, in a way that made it apparent she intended to press her thumb and middle finger together. Every one of them stopped cold. Katherine turned her hand a little, and waggled her forefinger at the men.

"I should think not." Her voice slowly picked up a sing-song quality she imagined worked quite well for the charade. She looked at her sister, head tilted, as innocently as she could. "There's no need to grant me special treatment. I was simply going to join the precession, anyway. I imagine we're all headed in the same direction? Lovely." She threw a dark look at the suits, and glanced to her right.

"I assume that _that_ is the end of the line." She thumbed at the strangers her sister had been addressing upon her arrival. No one said anything. Katherine thought that perhaps this was a good sign and skipped to the new company. She dipped her head to the only one she recognized (a very disturbed looking ally, with his frown and ill-fitting hat, who only nodded imperceptibly at her acknowledgement) and then curtsied with true pleasure for the gloriously-dressed knight.

Immediately, the knight dipped to his knee. Katherine started a bit, trying to coax him back to his feet, but to no avail. Instead, he grabbed one of her hands and gave a lavish dedication. Whether the dedication was to her or her hand she couldn't have been sure. All the same, when he was finished she turned her palm over and touched his chin gently.

"Thank you, but it's hardly necessary." She glanced out of the corner of her eye towards Mary, who was engaged in a very distressed conversation with a tall Ace. "But thank you," she whispered more sincerely.

She straightened and faced the crowd, throwing a half-honest smile at the cleverly dressed man now on her left. He didn't return it, looking only wary instead. It took her a second longer to notice the girl on his left (_Hullo, who's this…_).

She moved around to stand in front of the girl. She was pretty, and looking very cynical at the moment. She didn't seem too happy about Katherine's interest in her.

"Who are you?" Katherine asked the question without the insulting air it had possessed in her sister's mouth.

"Alice," the girl answered at length. An unexpected response, Katherine felt, considering that there was hardly an obvious difference between their ages.

"Alice? You seem far too _old_ to be Alice…" A bit of exaggeration, but still what she had been wondering.

"Justalice," the knight corrected, his voice octaves higher than she thought it should have been.

"Oh, I see," Katherine said, still not comprehending. She held her right hand out a moment, before switching it for the left one. "Sorry about that; I forgot how to." The explanation was meant to be stupid, but fell short of delivering any impression.

Alice shook her left hand all the same, her eyebrow raising in an amused concern. No time was allotted for this concern or amusement, as the Hearts clan was on the move, a good half of the suits leading the queen of Diamonds and her new acquaintances away.

* * *

If this chapter was confusing, I'm sorry. I promise it will all make sense. Also sorry about how little of a part Hatter played in this chapter. He's damn tricky to find, that one. Also, I'm trying to keep the chapters at similar lengths and this one was already 3,000 words…so I may have shortened it a bit. :/ Not to mention that my body is trying to die.


End file.
